In it he actually blamed Blount for getting the Cherokees and Chickasaws to help protect the frontier against the hostile Indians.
He forbade him to give any assistance to the Chickasaws.

He announced that he disapproved of The Stallion's deeds, and that the Cherokees must not destroy Creeks passing through their country on the way to the frontier.

He even intimated that the surrender of The Stallion to the Creeks would be a good thing.

As for protecting the frontier from the ravages of the Creeks, he merely vouchsafed the statement that he would instruct Seagrove to make "some pointed declarations" to the Creeks on the subject! He explained that the United States Government was resolved not to have a direct or indirect war with the Creeks; and he closed by reiterating, with futile insistency, that the instruction to the Cherokees not to permit Creek war parties against the whites to come through their country, did not warrant their using force to stop them.
[Footnote: Robertson MSS., Pickering to Blount, March 23, 1795.] He failed to point out how it was possible, without force, to carry out these instructions.
A more shameful letter was never written, and it was sufficient of itself to show Pickering's conspicuous incapacity for the position he held.

The trouble was that he represented not very unfairly the sentiment of a large portion of the Eastern, and especially the Northeastern, people.